Attivio on the Better Decisions Offensive
January 15, 2014
I read “A Search Engine That ‘Makes’ Data-Driven Business Decisions.” The enamel on the article was about making decisions without old fashioned search.
In the article/interview, Attivio (a user of open source software) positions the company in this way:
Attivio is focused on unifying information. The end goal of big data is to make some insight that is actionable.
I understand. Actionable information. The article explains:
With search engines, there is no concept that one page is linked to another. So, we added a graph engine, a mathematical graph, where there are nodes and links between them. We use the graph to link the results in query A to all possible results in query B. So, it is incredibly fast.
Does this remain anyone other than me of Autonomy’s embedded link invention from six, seven years ago?
Then I learn about the magic:
They put them in front of this interface. When a ticket comes in, they automatically identify the related content across all sources. Now, the sysadmins are happier, the company is happier, and these folks are learning all about this environment that they don’t really need to be trained on.
In short, the system goes beyond search just like IBM Watson, HP Autonomy, Palantir, and dozens of other content processing vendors.
Will Attivio become the next $800 million in revenue search vendor? There are some heavy hitters chasing the same brass ring. So far most search vendors get stuck in under the $100 million glass ceiling. With open source software offering a lower cost option, how will the dozens of information retrieval cum business intelligence systems fare in 2014? Good question. No answers yet.
Stephen E Arnold, January 15, 2014
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